A wavefront sensor is a device for measuring the aberrations of an optical wavefront. Wavefront sensors have been used for eye aberration measurement by directing a narrow beam of light to the retina of an eye and sensing the optical wavefront coming out from the eye. For a relaxed emmetropic eye or a relaxed eye with aberrations completely corrected, the optical wavefront coming out from the eye is planar. If, on the other hand, the eye has optical aberrations, the wavefront coming out from the eye in a relaxed state will depart from being planar.
Traditional vision diagnostic, vision corrective and surgical refractive procedures, including auto-refraction, standard eye wavefront measurement, phoropter test, LASIK (Laser Assisted In-Situ Keratomileusis), LTK (Laser Thermokeratoplasty), SBK (Sub-Bowmans Keratomileusis), IntraLASIK (Intra-stromal corneal lenticule extraction), PRK (photorefractive keratectomy), LASEK (Laser Assisted Sub-Epithelium Keratomileusis), IOL (Intraocular lens, including multi-focal, accommodating and toric IOL) implantation, corneal onlay/inlay implantation/positioning, RK (Radial keratotomy), LRI (Limbal Relaxing Incision), CRI (Corneal Relaxing Incision), and AK (Arcuate Keratotomy), are generally conducted without any continuous wavefront measurement result being displayed in real time to the clinical practitioner to show the effect of the correction in real time (see for example U.S. Pat. No. 6,271,914, U.S. Pat. No. 6,271,915, U.S. Pat. No. 6,460,997, U.S. Pat. No. 6,497,483, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,499,843). Although wavefront sensors have been used to measure the refractive errors and higher order aberrations of the eye before, during, and after the dynamic vision correction process, these devices generally only produce a static snapshot display of the wavefront map of the measurement, thereby potentially missing information vital to the practitioner for optimization of the optical outcome.
Overview
One embodiment is an apparatus/system for providing feedback to a vision correction procedure comprising a real time wavefront sensor for measuring the wavefront characteristics from a biological eye; a real time video camera for capturing digital images and/or recording video movies of the eye; a computer with a digital video recorder for enabling synchronized data processing, real time display, recording, and playback of both the recorded wavefront data/results and the recorded video movie of the eye; and a display connected to the computer for simultaneously displaying on the same screen the processed wavefront result and the video of the eye image.
Another embodiment is a method for providing feedback to a vision correction procedure, comprising the steps of measuring the optical wavefront from an eye with a real-time wavefront sensor; capturing and/or recording video movies of the eye with a real time video camera; processing the wavefront data and the video data with a computer having a digital video recorder to enable synchronized display, and/or recording, and/or playback of both the wavefront information and the video movie of the eye; and displaying simultaneously on the same screen or on more than one (separate) screens (heads up display in one or each ocular, for example) the processed wavefront result and the video of the eye image.
In one example embodiment, the wavefront data is captured on a frame-by-frame basis real-time in synchronization with the real time video-movie of the eye, and to display both on the same or multiple monitor(s).
In another example embodiment, Digital Video Recorder (DVR) capabilities are included so that the wavefront measurement parameters can be reviewed (rewound and played back) as a synchronized movie with the video-movie of the eye during and/or after the vision correction procedure.